Thursday 22 January 2015

Book Review - The Universe Five Minutes at a Time by James McAlister

I discovered this little gem in a Facebook group I admin. I would say in advance that the author doesn't really sell it in the books blurb, which is a shame as this is a decent collection of science fiction short stories.

One story in particular stood out for me and that was about a group of caretakers of creation. The writing was excellent and the idea a novel one. And that sums the book up nicely - it's full of good ideas and the author has a solid and clean writing style which meant I devoured the stories on offer in no time at all.

This was helped by the stories being quite short, more like flash fiction in some cases. Which leads to my only real complaint about the book. I think that some of the stories deserved more attention and didn't quite fulfill their potential. I understand that some of the stories are also teasers for longer works, but they should be able to stand on their own.

I'm a fan of short stories and this is a good one. Well worth checking out.



A few really, really short stories by J. W. McAllister
Edition 2; several typos corrected.
If you liked the Twilight Zone's cute ironies, perhaps you'll find some amusement here. Also included are short introductions to events and characters in four books I have written or are working on.
Enjoy!


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